lismore and its people
Lismore tattoo shops have softer seats and better coffee than those down on the strip – although the Byron parlours have a better looking female customer base, backpackers and the like. Plenty of long, brown legs.
Lismore looks after its own. Dave for instance, he’s in the chair today after having had all his hair cut off back at the farm by his brother, Mick.
I asked Dave why he was having fifteen skulls and a Harley Davidson 1997 Shovelhead inked onto his newly shaved head.
‘What happens when your hair grows back?’
I asked.
‘Don’t be fucken stupid, ‘he says, ‘I’ll have somethin’ to look forward to when I go fucken bald.’
Dave’s a bit of a hardnut, like Janice.
Janice does checkout duty at Coles in Lismore Square, been there for fifteen years.
Janice is a big unit, short fat and wide. She also has a pair of eyes that would rival Elizabeth Taylors’.
She, Janice, applies sparkle to her eyebrows the same way a woman puts on expensive perfume, where you have to be close to catch the fragrance. The closer you get to Janice the less you see of anything other than her eyes.
$235.00.
Janice looks at me.
‘You have Fly-Buys?’
‘Only if they get me a ticket to Hong Kong tomorrow.’
She laughs, soft and husky.
‘Not likely.’
I swipe the card, wait for the docket to spill out and I take it from her.
‘You know something?’ I ask.
‘What?’
‘If this counter wasn’t between us I reckon we could score a hug here.’
‘Don’t let that stop you,’ she says.
Janice walked out of her checkout, came right up close and wrapped her arms around me. Her head was about as high as my chin.
.. and her perfume wasn’t too bad either.
Lismore, my kind of town.
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